C[harles] A. H[ammond] to Frederick Douglass, September 1860

DEAR DOUGLASS:—In the September number of your paper appeared an article signed 'A. P.,' entitled, 'What is the duty of Radical Abolitionists in the present campaign,' to which I wish to pay a little attention. I am reminded, at the onset, of the words of a dear friend of mine and of humanity, that 'no man could answer and expose the tissue of sophistries contained in that article better than the author of it;' and as it seems hardly creditable that he will persist in the course indicated by it, but will, in the October number, himself expose its fallacies, I am tempted to trust to his doing so, and hold my peace.—Lest he should not refute his own errors, however, I venture to unmask some of his specious illusions which it contains.

Perhaps the most dangerous, because the most ensnaring, is the assumption that in voting for Abraham Lincoln, Abolitionists simply aid the Republicans in limiting slavery, without being in any manner responsible for the wrong things which the candidate or the party may do. But, surely, nothing can be plained than the fact that in voting for a slave catching President, we do as truly endorse and sanction slave-catching as the nonextension policy which he advocates. The truth is, upon almost all practical points in regard to slavery, the Republican party and the Radicals occupy not similar, but radically hostile positions. The Republican party, shoudl slaves rie in rebellion, would wield the whole power of the army and navy to crush them; whereas Abolitionists would put down the masters as being really the rebels. The Republican party would seize and restore to slavery the fugitive; but Abolitionists would protec and defend him. The Republican party, as represented by Mr. Lincoln, would receive new slave States; but Abolitionists would not. It would protect slavery

in the Federal District, which Abolitionists would abolish. It would recognize the legality and constitutionality of slavery in the States, while Abolitionists deny both. Yet 'A. P.' would have it that he can vote for Lincoln, and in doing so, simply endorse non-extension without sanctioning at the same time all those pro slavery positions.

Again, he represents that there can nothing be done for abolition that next four years, even with an abolition administration; that the 'paths' of Radicals and Conservatives are at present, and for some years to come, parallel; it is only in the future they diverge. One would think that the above recited 'divergence' was, some of it at least, in the present. It appears to me that their paths 'diverge' very materially at the ballot box this fall.

It is not true that Abolitionists and Republicans agree in 'the necessity of rescuing the Government from the hands of the tools of the Slave Power,' as 'A. P.' asserts; for the Republicans are straining every nerve to place the Government in the hands of a man who not only stands ready to hunt slaves, but who supports the ostracism, socially and politically, of the blacks at the North. Is not such a candidate a 'tool' of the Slave Power?—The illustrations of 'A. P.' are wide of the mark, and not analogous. But time and space will not allow me to follow him.

C. A. H.